


Only Promise To Love Me

by I_Shouldnt_Be_Here



Category: Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020)
Genre: Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Catharsis, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Shouldnt_Be_Here/pseuds/I_Shouldnt_Be_Here
Summary: Aman and Kartik spend comfortable weeks in their house. Aman proposes Kartik, but are they ready? Grand gestures certainly aren't part of their vocabulary.
Relationships: Kartik Singh/Aman Tripathi
Comments: 24
Kudos: 24





	Only Promise To Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy!

_ Chaand ke paas thha woh sapna _

_ Ab toh ghar bhi duur lagta hai apna. _

  
  


Aman came back home from a tiring day at the office, working his nine-to-eight job. Kartik laid down on the sofa, staring blankly at the blue screen of the television. He barely noticed Aman entering. He was watching some sitcom with half-asleep eyes. His head laid uncomfortably on the sofa while the rest of his body was sprawled out on the floor. 

He looked at Kartik for a whole minute. His eyes were blank, his jaw slack and with the way he was looking on the television, the characters might as well have been on Mars. 

“Kartik, kya hua? Itne thakey huey ho?” Aman knew that Kartik often blanked out like this, in front of the television. He knew that sometimes, his usually cheerful disposition was too hard to maintain.Aman bent down and sat next to Kartik, uncomfortable trousers and all.

_ (Kartik, what happened? You’re so tired…) _

“Kartik, baby, tumhe kya hua?” Aman gently shook his shoulders.

…

Meanwhile storms broke water upon Kartik’s shore. His blank eyes saw the moving pictures on the screen as the only anchor keeping him grounded. He spent over an hour waiting for Aman every day for the past six months, similarly sprawled over the sofa. Most of the days he managed to get up to greet him inside. Today he simply couldn’t make himself. Aman’s levee wasn’t enough to tide over this storm.

Kartik knew Aman wasn’t the problem. He was a darling who deserved the best. But sometimes his ‘baby strongest’ turned out too strong for him. Sometimes his empathy turned Kartik off, because he just wasn’t used to it.

Aman’s kind words, his reassuring hugs stood out in contrast to everything Kartik ever received from this world. His father’s harsh words and beatings, his ex boyfriends berating him that he was too ‘feminine’ for their taste, the casual microaggressions from his workplace, his landlady telling him day after day that ‘his roommate’ wasn’t a good person.

He  _ knew _ it was his father’s, previous boyfriends’, colleagues’, the landlady’s homophobia, femmephobia and transphobia, the poisonous roots of which were nurtured by society’s obsession with purity, pollution and morality.

He knew all of that. But when  _ ever _ did big words bring comfort?

He knew. And he knew that Aman knew.

Seeing his own body in a mirror made him cry. He felt someone shaking his shoulders.

...

“Kya hua baby?” Aman asked him gently.

_ (What happened, baby?) _

“Kuch nahi. Bas accha nahi lag raha.” He masked his feelings with nonchalance.

_ (Nothing much.) _

“Theek hai, agar aisa kehte ho toh. You want a hug?” He asked, because he knew that touching Kartik without warning often made him feel worse. He knew that Kartik distrusted anyone’s touch because the people around him had given him more than enough reasons to do so. 

_ (Okay then, if you say so.) _

“No. Please thodi dair akela chhod do. Mujhe pata hai ki tum bhi office se aa kar thak gaye ho. I’ll be fine after five minutes. Till then freshen yourself up.”

In that very moment, Aman fell a little deeper in love with Kartik. He marvelled at Kartik’s ability to read between the lines. He understood Aman’s limits of  _ being there _ .

_ (No. Please leave me alone for a while. I know that you must be tired after coming home from the office.) _

Aman spent a few minutes under the cold shower, letting his mind scatter its assorted musings here and there. It got violent to the point that he could almost hear a thought splatter loudly against the bathroom wall.

Feeling suitably replenished, he walked out of the shower stall. He put on clean clothes and found Kartik on the bed, rolled into a ball and clutching a pillow. 

“Abhi bataoge tumhe kya hua? The previous offer of a hug still stands, by the way.” He gently held his arm that was hell bent on carving a valley into the pillow. Kartik’s terribly  _ blank _ face did not react to Aman’s words. 

_ (Now will you tell me what happened?) _

Aman laid down beside Kartik, creating a crater in the mattress. He was careful to do it slowly. He brushed his hands over Kartik’s face, pulling his attention to the present. Kartik’s eyes slowly shed their opacity. He became receptive to Aman’s touch, and immediately shrunk away like a scared rabbit.

“It’s okay, Kartik. Mai yahi hoon.” Aman laid down beside him on the bed and his arm touched Kartik’s painfully bent shoulders. 

_ (It’s okay, Kartik. I’m right here.) _

Aman coaxed Kartik into relaxing. Kartik’s body elongated and he let go of the pillow. After some time he turned around to face Aman. His eyes were rimmed with red, about to burst the dams over them, built through years of conditioning and repression.

He couldn’t physically bring himself to shed tears. The dams over his eyes felt like impenetrable cement walls and his chest felt like it was coated in layers upon layers of tar, into a viscous, inescapable shell. Aman’s arms surrounding him felt like plastic.

He slept that night with blankets of tar, cement and plastic.

…

It was a weekend the next day. Both of them woke up late, with horizontally slanted early-afternoon sunbeams poking their faces. 

Kartik brushed away yesterday’s pain.

Yesterday’s pain did not belong in the present, but it compounded and crystallised inside every crevice of the body. Inside the wriggly folds of the brain, inside the valves of his heart and in the crooks of elbows. Burden upon burden filled the valleys of his body with lead. But Kartik being himself, he pushed that away. Because that’s what people were supposed to do. He wrapped his arms around Aman as he woke up. 

He felt relieved that Aman’s arms felt  _ human. _

“Baby, lagta hai aaj brunch karna padega.” Aman felt suspicious at Kartik’s enthusiasm.

_ (Baby, I think we need to make a brunch today.) _

…

An hour later, Kartik and Aman were covered in pancake batter. Kartik felt considerably better, but the glops of batter falling from his hands didn’t give him time to reconsider his mental state. He smeared some on Aman’s cheek.

“Kya kar raha hai yaar! Pancakes khaane hai ya nahi?” Aman let out a giggle. 

_ (What are you doing, huh? Don’t you want pancakes?) _

“Iska answer woh nahi hai jo tum soch rahe ho.” It was accompanied with a seductive expression tainted with a little innocence.

_ (Hmm, the answer isn’t what you’re thinking.) _

Half of the batter was made into pancakes, while the other half was eaten before it even landed into the pan. The meal was served with sweet, lingering glances, which caused comfortable earthquakes in Aman’s belly. He thought that if he ever would marry someone, this was what it’d be like.

“Kya mai tumhe kiss kar sakta hoon?” He asked.

_ (Can I kiss you?) _

“Yes.” Kartik replied, breathless.

He kissed Kartik’s honey-stained lips. His arms wandered over Kartik’s back, clothed by a five-year old, faded, frayed-to-the-seams tee shirt, which Kartik refused to get rid of, on the principle that it was too damn comfortable to let go.

He went down, kissed his unshaven jaw and chin. Meanwhile they walked with clumsy steps to the sofa. Kartik continued kissing him, mouth opening up wider with each caress of Aman’s lips. Tongues intertwined and continued dancing.

And then, as soon as this lustful tide rose, it fell and vanished. Aman disengaged and looked at Kartik with a content smile.

His hands automatically searched for Kartik’s hand. When he found it, he cherished it like a treasure. He brought Kartik’s hand to eye level, drinking in the valleys between his fingers, the rivers of his veins, the hills of his knuckles and the bridges of his tendons. 

Then he laid his hand on his lap and proceeded to do that again, via the sense of touch, instead of vision this time. 

Meanwhile, Kartik’s eyes closely observed Aman, how one person could look at him with so much wonder and love, so much that looking at him made Kartik feel like an intruder while Aman conducted his private worships to secret deities hidden within his body. Deities Kartik could never find when he looked at his body with his own eyes.

Aman interrupted Kartik’s self-flagellation by placing his head on his shoulder. 

“Kaisa hota agar tum mujh se shaadi kar lete?” Aman stared at the wall, and the words slipped out of his mouth without his permission. Kartik’s face froze. In reply, Aman gave him a fierce kiss yet again, planning to divert his attention.

_ (How would it be if you married me?) _

“Sex offer kar ke distract mat kar yaar!” Kartik strode towards the bedroom.

_ (Don’t distract me by offering to have sex with me!) _

Aman knew he had done wrong after seeing Kartik walk away to the bedroom and shutting the door. 

An icy fist clenched Kartik’s chest. The  _ thwack _ of the door shutting reverberated inside the confines of his skull for a painful minute.

Kartik held his head and sat on the bed. Images assaulted his head for some time. He thought about the relationships he had built over the years, brick by cumbersome brick.

He thought about Devika, Anjana and all of his friends. The people in his workplace whom he often shared cups of steaming tea. He thought about Aman’s family.

He thought about the network of people he had built over the years, which by now had hardened into a comfortable safety net.

Yes, Aman was at the centre of this tree of connections, but  _ marriage _ required that he sever off the rest of the branches, save for one. That seemed to be an impossibly tall order. And Kartik knew that it was too much of a burden for Aman.

“Kartik darwaza khol yaar! I’m so sorry…” These words were repeated by Aman for the past fifteen minutes, but they reached Kartik’s ears for the very first time.

_ (Kartik open the door please! I’m so sorry…) _

Kartik opened the door and saw Aman positioned on the floor with his head cradled in his arms. When he saw the door opening, he immediately rushed into Kartik’s arms and shed his tears freely.

Aman’s tears were a signal for his own. Tears which had built up in him over the past twenty years, starting all the way from seven year old Kartik who had been beaten up by the neighbourhood boys and whose father beat him until he stopped crying.

They cried in each other’s arms for a long while. Aman apologised repeatedly, for suggesting the idea of marriage, of bringing it up at the wrong time, and for a thousand other things.

“Problem woh nahi hai… Asal mein…” With this, Kartik had one of the few honest conversations of his life. Without the bluster, which by now had become armour against these exact tough conversations.

_ (That is not the problem… actually…) _

…

“Arre kisne kaha yeh sab? Chalo abhi theek hai, main shaadi ki baat nahi karunga. Filhaal main roz ghar jaldi aaunga, taaki tumhe mere liye wait naa karna pade. Promise nahi kar sakta, lekin I’ll try my best.” Aman said. Kartik wondered how Aman knew what his heart wanted, even before he knew himself.

_ (Who told all of this to you? It’s okay, I won’t talk about marriage. For now I’ll come home early, so that you don’t have to wait for me every day. I can’t promise, but I’ll try my best.) _

“Theek hai. And I think I need help. Shaayad therapist ke paas jana pade.” With these words (said in a very small voice), he unwrapped the first, thinnest layer of the bundle of shame that had taken root in his heart.

_ (Okay then. And I think I need help. I might need to go to the therapist.) _

Aman gave a half smile to Kartik. He did not yet completely understand what Kartik was going through, but he resolved to be there for him. 

“Theek hai Kartik, jo bhi tum face kar rahe ho, ek saath face karenge, okay? Abhi ke liye, step by step chalte hai. Maine bhi thoda zyada bol diya.” Aman gave one of his biggest smiles to Kartik, and that was enough to repair the rift between them.

_ (It’s alright, Kartik. Whatever you’re facing, we’re in it together okay?) _

...

_ Humko roz baahon mei bharna _

_ Paas bulaake, duur karna _

_ Seekh rahe woh bhi pyaar karna _

_ Seekh rahe woh bhi pyaar karna. _

_ Shaayaron ki mehfilon ke dar naa _

_ Aashiq ho toh phir kaisa darrna? _

_ Seekh rahe woh bhi pyaar karna _

_ Seekh rahe woh bhi pyaar karna. _

**Author's Note:**

> How did you like it? It began as an attempt to challenge myself. I thought that I was using setting and dialogue too much, as an escape from exploring the inner mental states of a character. So this was born! Sorry but not really sorry for laying the angst thick on this one.  
> And yes, I haven't forgotten about the other fic, 'What Happened Backstage'... It's going to take a little more time. The last chapter needs some research. I'm speed-reading a book for it. *hint hint*  
> All the while being inundated by web conferences and online classes. Karey toh karey kya? *sigh*
> 
> The song used in the beginning and end of this fic is 'Duur Hai Wo' by Deepak Rathore Project.  
> Kudos and comments make my day!  
> -Adv


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